金琦之旅 Amazing Voyage: Taiwan Day 11 : 十分瀑布 Shifen Waterfall - 十分老街 Shifen Old Street - 菁桐站 JingTong Station

Today is Mid Autumn Festival in Lunar Calendar. Hence it is a big day for chinese. We decided to go to the famous Sky Lantern Festical at Ping Xi at night. Hence, we decided to go to Shifen and other place near the PingXi. We knew there will be large crowd too.

We bought a one-day ticket for PingXi line which is from RuiFang station to JingTong Station. Actually it is not much different if you have an ticket card like 悠悠卡 as the fare is almost the same. But it is convenience for those don't have the ticket card as don't need to queue to buy the ticket especially the festival day.

TWD 80 for PingXi line one-day pass

PingXi line train reached at RuiFang Station

Reached Shifen Station, it was so crowded.

Even tough there were many crowd, the person in charge in the station still can manage the traffic. Thumbs up

It was raining, but there still able to release the sky lantern successfully.

We leave the Shifen Old Street first as the crowd were too large and went to the Shifen Waterfall. Walking from the old street to the waterfall took around 30 minutes.

In the Shifen Primary School, all decorated with sky lantern

Sky lantern square.

Once we reached the visitor information center, there is a shorter way to go to the waterfall which is via this bridge that is just behind the center. There are two kind of this bridge to go to the waterfall. Hence, there is no need to take photo of this bridge near the old street as the crowd is too many.

Old Bridge.

PingXi, ShiFen were coal mining area.

Shifen Waterfall

Walked back to the old street, the crowd was lesser. There are so many shop that sell sky lantern souvenir.

Sky lantern lamp

Small sky lantern, TWD 50 each

Then we bought a four color sky lantern which cost TWD 200.

Writing in progress

After written, they put the burning material

Is time to release. Yeah~

Next, we took the train to JingTong station which is an historical station.

Hanging Bamboo with wishes

Bought any food to fill up the stomach

Just few meters away from the JingTong Station, there is a special police station where it has sky lantern shaped screen.

Sky lantern police station

This sky lantern screen is really unique and creative. To reduce the environmental impact, you can write down your wishes at the registration counter. Then it will shown on the big screen. This idea is really awesome.

Registration to write the wishes at second floor.

8 postcard for just TWD100, cheapest we had found

Next, we took train to PingXi station as the Sky Lantern Festical is located at the PingXi Secondary School. Even tough, this school is located between the PingXi and JingTong station, we decided to take train to the PingXi station as the train arrived before we planned to walk and the school is nearer to the PingXi station.

This event start from 6pm to 8:30pm. It is free admission but to release the sky lantern need to register and paid for the fee. There were 8 rounds of sky lantern release. Each round participants need to start to write after entered the releasing place while there were some performances on the stage.

People walked towards the event location.

Once entered the secondary school, the staircase painting look nice!

We stood quite far from the stage but it was a nice view.

Big sky lantern near the stage.

We just saw for 4 rounds as the train to go back to Taipei is not that frequent. At PingXi station, we took the train to JingTong Station as it was the last the station and it was the same train that will go to RuiFang Station. After the train arrived back to PingXi Station, there were so many people waiting outside. Once the door opened, the crowd just rush inside to get the sit. But there is still plenty of place to stand.

Then we changed station at RuiFang, We rush to the exit and enter again to tap the ticket card as the train to go to Taipei arrived few minutes just after the PingXi train reached RuiFang.

There is also a alternative way to go back to Taipei that is sitting the 795 bus back to the Muzha MRT Station. I think this is faster but we had bought the one day train ticket. So just took the train.